Page:English laws for women in the nineteenth century.djvu/111

99 ''turn for the drama (of whom, unfortunately, my own solicitor was one), were suspended in breathless, helpless inaction. None who witnessed that scene can forget it to their lives' end—all must remember it as the most splendid piece of ever exhibited; however much the sober mind of England must revolt against the disgrace of a court of justice being turned into the stage of Drury-lane.''

My denials shall be as few as possible and as brief.

''First. The agreement, or rather the memorandum, of 1848 was not a binding one. Mrs Norton knew this as well as I did—at least, her own solicitor told me it was not at the time we signed it; moreover, she did try then to make the contemplated arrangement between us a binding document, by finding trustees, but failed to do so, as not one of her relations or friends would become her surety.''

''One of Mrs Norton's stipulations in the memorandum was not observed from, the very first, for constant applications have been made to my solicitor and myself for payment of her debts. Nevertheless, had our relative circumstances remained as they were when we entered into it, I should have continued to pay her £500 per annum. She was quite correct in court when she swore that her non-reception of the annuity from Lord Melbourne formed no part of the conditions upon which that agreement was come to. I never said it did. Lord Melbourne was then alive, and I had no tangible grounds for then raising the question; but some short time afterwards I was informed by a person, who shall be nameless, after the oath that was given on Thursday (but I speak from recollection only, not having refreshed my memory with the correspondence which passed between us at the time) that Lord Melbourne had left a sealed letter for his brother, stating that he (Lord Melbourne) might have given her an annuity upon the lands he had himself acquired, but that he preferred leaving it to the convenience of his brother to secure her in an annuity of £G00 per annum,, or some other sum, and he (the person alluded to) added, that I might depend on this''